In general, a refrigerator, which is an apparatus for supplying cooled air according to driving of a refrigeration cycle, serves to store food at a low temperature. Conventional refrigerators have only functioned to store food at a low temperature. Recently, however, additional functions other than the function of storing food have been increasingly needed. To check the interior of a refrigerator serving to receive and store certain items, the door of the refrigerator need to be opened. In addition, in the case that the quantity and kinds of food stored in the refrigerator are not identified when a user desires to buy an item in a market or a mart, a food item may be redundantly purchased, or a necessary food item may not be purchased.
In conventional art, Japanese Patent No. 3450907 and Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2004-183987 disclose that a camera is installed at a door to photograph the interior of the refrigerator. In addition, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2001-294308 discloses that cameras are installed in the refrigerator, in a drawer, and at the door.
However, according to the aforementioned conventional documents, the range of photographing of the camera installed in the refrigerator is limited. Thereby, a plurality of cameras needs to be used to photograph various storage regions.
Accordingly, it is needed to improve the photographing efficiency of a camera by reducing the number of cameras installed in the refrigerator and increasing the range of a region photographed by the camera.
In addition, according to conventional art, there have been various problems in acquiring a photo of the interior of the drawer. For example, a specific method of acquiring a picture captured at a desired time, concern about dew condensation occurring on the camera, and improvement of power consumption of the camera have not been specifically addressed.
More specifically, the conventional art have been lacked concreteness of providing optimum information for the user in consideration of uniqueness and positional relationship of a plurality of storage regions in the case the storage regions including a drawer are present in the refrigerator.